Reese felt the pain of her words as strongly as if she’d been smacked. “You still blame me. After all these years, you still blame me, as if my lack of memory is somehow responsible for everything and intended to hurt you. Well I can’t help that I survived, Aunt Celeste. I’m me, Reese Delaware—or at least what there is of me. And I won’t apologize for my existence anymore.”
“Reese!”
“Goodbye, Aunt Celeste. I’ll call you when I reach Los Angeles.” She hung up the phone before her aunt could respond.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Reese shielded her face with her hands, the weight of her pain seeping through her fingers to trickle down her cheeks.
“Why can’t I remember?” she cried. “Why?”
“Victoria, you have a call on line one,” the engineer who sat to her left said, tapping Victoria gently on the shoulder.
Victoria turned toward Cliff and nodded her thanks. Removing her headset, she took one quick look at the lighted board in front of her, sparkling with colored lights that detailed the circuitry she was working on. Satisfied for the moment, she pushed away from the digital panel.
At the young age of twenty-eight she was head of the engineering division for the Air Force, an unprecedented position. It was her sole responsibility to oversee every aspect of computer assembly and sign off on everything that left her department.
She’d worked damned hard to get to where she was. She’d done some things that made her skin crawl, but she’d survived. Her only regret was losing Max. She’d tried for months to get him to talk to her, but he’d refused. Eventually she’d given up and began to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. But she’d never forgotten the one man who’d almost made her do the right thing.
She depressed the flashing red button on the console. “Davenport,” she said curtly, eager to get back to her design.
“Vicky, dear, I’m so sorry to bother you at work, but I had the most awful conversation with that witch, Reese.”
Victoria twisted her mouth in annoyance. The last person she wanted to hear about was her half sister, Reese Delaware.
“What happened now, Aunt Celeste?”
Victoria returned to her desk. Breathing hard, she just stared at the electronic board.
“Vic, are you alright?” Cliff asked, snatching off his headset. “You look pale.”
Victoria shook her head. “No. I mean, yes—I’m fine. But I think I’ll take the rest of the day off. Something came up.” Quickly she shut down her sector, collected her belongings, and rushed out of the lab.
Driving more by instinct than from paying attention, Victoria took the Fourteenth Street Bridge out of D.C. into the suburbs to Arlington, Virginia.
“Dammit!” she railed, slamming her palms against the steering wheel. What were the chances of your ex-lover and a sister you’ve never met getting together? The irony of the situation was not lost on her. Reese had always wound up with everything—the family, the home, the security. She, on the other hand, was the big family secret. And now Reese would be spending the next six weeks with Max. Would she wind up with him, too?
An hour later Reese was still reeling from the conversation with her aunt when the phone rang again. With great reluctance, she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, girl, it’s Lynnette.”
Reese’s smile lit up the room. A call from her homegirl was just the medicine she needed. She felt as if a weight had been lifted off of her chest.
“Lynnette, you couldn’t have called at a better time.”
“Sounds like you’ve been talking to the wicked witch of the east again,” Lynnette teased.
Reese laughed out loud at the vision. However, her aunt could be more closely pegged as Glenda from the North. Celeste Winston was, on the surface, a stunning woman of fifty-two. Her exquisite peaches-and-cream face was smooth and unlined, haloed by sparkling auburn hair. She was in excellent shape, went to the hairdresser once per week, and spent her well-earned money as a private-duty nurse for the Air Force, on designer clothes. On the surface, Celeste had it all, but underneath she was a lonely, bitter woman who’d never married. And she seemed to take pleasure in venting her frustrations on the niece she’d been forced to raise.
“On target as usual. But I don’t want to talk about her. There’s not enough time in the world. What’s happening at the magazine?”
“Hart is still busting my chops and as pig-headed as ever. I’m working my tail off as usual.”
They both laughed. “But what I want to know is what’s up with you? How is Mr. Wonderful Mystery Man up close and personal?”
“He’s all that and more,” Reese admitted on a wistful note.
“Mmm, sounds serious. Talk to me.”
Reese sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. She crossed her bare legs at the knee. “At first I was all about getting the story of my career, no matter what I had to do to get it. Literally. When we first met, I went into my bag and pulled out all of my tricks.” She chuckled mirthlessly and shook her head. “But the more I’m with him, the more I want to be with him. It’s no longer just the story I want, Lynn. It’s him. And I know I’m really stretching the lines of ethics, but girl, I can’t help myself. When we’re together rockets go off. It’s so intense, sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Wow—!” Lynnette exhaled. “He must be something. In the ten years that I’ve known you, you’ve never talked about a man like this. What are you going to do about it? And secondly, how in the world are you going to stay objective if you have to keep changing your panties whenever he’s in the same air space?”
They both burst into another fit of raucous laughter visualizing Lynnette’s ribald analogy.
“Girl, you are too crazy,” Reese uttered, choking down the last of her chuckles.
“That’s why we’ve been friends for so long. You’re the sultry, sexy one who winds their way under a man’s skin. I, on the other hand, just jump right in and say what’s on my mind. Consequences be damned!”
“You’re right about that one,” she said.
Reese and Lynnette had met while undergrads at Howard University during a speech communication seminar. They clicked almost immediately and were roommates for the balance of their stay at Howard. After graduation, they both decided to take the plunge and move to Chicago. With their backgrounds and personal savvy, they both landed jobs almost immediately. Although Lynnette worked for Visions as a full-time staff writer, Reese preferred to freelance for a variety of newspapers and magazines. It didn’t allow for a stable financial existence, but it gave her the opportunity to come and go as she pleased. Plus, she never got stuck having to write stories she had no interest in. She picked what she wanted.
“What time is your flight?” Lynnette asked, cutting into Reese’s musings.
Reese yawned and checked the clock. “A car should be picking me up in about twenty minutes. Our flight leaves at ten o’clock.”
“How long are you going to be on the coast? I have some vacation days due to me. I might be able to pop out there and maybe I can squeeze in an interview with Quincy if I plan it right.”
Reese let out a whoop of delight. “That would be fabulous. We’re scheduled to be out there for about two weeks. Then it’s on to Tokyo. Oh please come. I could use a friend,” she pleaded in her best little girl voice.
“Ooh, girl, you know I hate it when you whine,” she joked.
“So you’ll